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Sheriff plans 911 change; paint savings noted

Sheriff Shane Rekeweg brought a contract for a new Public Safety Access Point (PSAP) from Frontier to be signed by the commissioners at their Tuesday meeting.
The county council approved the purchase of the new 911 equipment at its monthly meeting last week, when Rekeweg explained the problems their current system has, and provided the council with quotes and a recommendation for new machinery. He reported that the machine that is supposed to record a caller's contact information, so that emergency assistance can be sent to the right place, often does not work. This has not only been inconvenient, but dangerous, and Rekeweg feels that the company that is supposed to take care the system does not prioritize the maintenance of the emergency equipment.
Frontier, which already assists the sheriff's department in the maintenance of other equipment, gave the best quote for the installation and maintenance of new equipment. Rekeweg has been pleased by this company's work in the past and strongly recommended them to the council.
Now that the commissioners have signed the contract to switch the 911 equipment over to that provided by Frontier, Rekeweg plans to have the replacement completed by May 1 of this year.
The sheriff also reported that his department will receive four more vehicles this year, including a new truck within the next 10 days. He noted that these will also be white, instead of the two-tone brown. The department decided to go with white sheriff's cars last year, which saves approximately $4,300 per car.
Rekeweg noted that the money saved from the paint job will supply each car with nearly half of the equipment needed to make it a fully-functional sheriff 's vehicle.
He also mentioned that many other counties are switching to white sheriff cars, as manufacturers do not typically make two-tone brown cars and after the department receives a vehicle, it must be sent elsewhere to be painted.
Rekeweg also reported:
⁃ Thanks to a grant, a patrol car is currently being installed with a camera that will take a picture of a car's license plate and run it through a list of license plates on vehicles that have been reported stolen.
⁃ He is looking for more grants to get more cameras, but if he is unsuccessful, he might just add the funds for a four new cameras a year to his budget.
⁃ As of Friday, the jail is completely full. Rekeweg said that if anyone was brought in over the weekend, they were probably put on the floor.

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